The Foreigner
by The Master Thrasher
Summary: A man from another dimension is flung into the world of Remnant, his mind torn from the crossing of realms. Trying to mend his broken psyche, find the one responsible for this, and try to uphold his facade to his team, The Foreigner must try and figure out how to prevent his mental collapse before it takes over his mind.
1. Harvester of Faunus Sorrow

**Scavenger of Faunus Sorrow**

* * *

Joey had been in the city of Vale for about a month now, and from what he'd been seeing and been up too, it was a month full of different feelings and experinces. He never would have thought being in the White Fang would have taken him so far away from Vacuo, but when he and his group were getting on a bullhead the next morning and flying over to Vale, he was looking forward to getting out of the desert area. Not getting sand in every single orrifice would be a preferable change of pace. When they boarded the bullhead and waited patiently for the 10 hour flight, he was actually glad to step out and be met with cool, refreshing late spring air. It was a welcome change from the barren desert wastelands that he had inhabited for most of his life.

It may have been his home, but _dear god_ , was it dreadfull. Especially the sand. He never liked the sand. it was was coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it would get _everywhere_...

And speaking of dreadfull, he was fairly optimistic of the time he was going to be spending in Vale until he realized just how closely he'd have to be operating with humans. Not-withstanding all the regular prejudice towards the commoners, his main worries were about the rumor going around that apparently the White Fang had recently started working _with human criminals._ One name was floating around predominantly, that name belonging to one Roman Torchwick. He didn't know the name before, but some quick research on his end turned up quite the laundry list of felonies on this person's past. Not that he'd ever been caught for them, of course, otherwise he wouldn't be known as a _successfull_ criminal.

And sure enough, not even an hour after they had landed, their suspicions had been proven correct when they were informed that his group was going to be directly working under said Roman Torchwick. His brothers and sisters weren't exactly too pleased upon getting conformation of this, even if the rumor was floating around their ranks beforehand. Joey wasn't exactly thrilled either, but he held his tongue. Complaining never really did anything to help these sort of situations anyways, plus he was never really one to nag.

That still hadn't changed the state of mind for his comrades, however. Some took it better then others, but those others were _very_ vocal in their disliking of this decision, both with the fact that they were working with a Human _,_ and a rather despicable one at that. But another gripe he had heard a lot was how left out of the whole process they had felt. After all, The _White Fang_ , a terrorist group for faunus who advocate against the tyranny of humans, is now going to be _directed_ by one? Obviously, they had felt like as though they had no say in the matter, and it had affected their morale noticably.

That was, until, Adam Taurus himself had made a suprise guest appearance the next day in order to speak with them. The bull faunus had probably known beforehand that this would be the reaction of most of the migrants, especially the newer recruits who were still green as grass and getting brainwashed by the heavy emphasis of the hatred towards humanity. They always were sure to stuff that down the throats of initiates, like they were heroin addicts getting another fix of tar that they didn't know they needed. And hell, even if he didn't much care for it, Joey could still understand the point of the oblivious manipulation. Most Faunus had come here searching for something to fuel their hatred, and the White Fang were more then happy to give it to them. _Especially_ from Taurus himself.

" _I understand how you all feel. Trust me, I felt in a similar manner when the news was brought to me._ " He recalled the words Adam had spoke to them during that speech almost a month prior. " _And in no way do I particularly condone of the decision, either. But, begrudgingly, sacrifices must be made in order too achieve our goal. I believe we all are familiar with that concept."_

 _"But even now, with our hospitality given, the human Torchwick believes that he is manipulating us to do his biding. He still views us as animals."_

Joey remembered the reaction that was warranted from that, a combination of shouts and growls of distate, which even he couldn't miss the irony of. He was mostly placate during the meeting, however. He could see the manipulation working it's way to the recruit's heads, just as with the hate campaigns that were forced down their throats not too long ago.

" _And that, my brothers and sisters, is where his arrogance will be his downfall. Just like the other humans who have dared to try and control us."_ Adam went on, the ghost of a smirk forming on his lips as he saw his words get through to his troops. His partner, the Belladonna girl, had kept her words to herself for the entirety of this meeting as she chose instead to sulk quietly behind him. He turned to spare her a glance before continuing " _For now, we must allow him to believe he is in control. After all, despite his stupidity, the man has proven himself useful in some ways."_

Make the underlings believe they were in charge, so as to not notice how hilariously hard the wool was being pulled over their eyes. Make them believe that _they_ were the ones allowing Torchwick to be in control. This tactic was not missed by Joey, but luckily kept his feelings toward this hidden with a complasiant poker face. Besides, so long as he got a roof over his head and food in his stomach? He could care less about taking orders from a human, even if this one was an exceptional piece of garbage.

But being pulled back into the present, Joey laid back and read up on local news on his scroll, seeing if anything about the other White Fang groups had been poping up. He was currently reading an article from a week and a half ago about a dust shop on the other side of Vale being robbed, led by the dastardly bastard himself, Roman. He couldnt help but snort privatetly at the picture, said man tipping his hat to the security footage with a sly grin. he was a cheeky devil, he'd give the human that. Looking up from the device, however, he saw the small living room of the house they were inhabiting was fairly quiet as everyone just stood around out of uniform, waiting for something.

That something, being the check in from their small group of three they sent out about an hour ago to commence their first operation, a simple procurment of dust from a dust shop about a twenty minute drive away. They had sent two of their more experinced troops, along with a third... _not_ so experinced initiate. A fresh-faced teen straight out of training named Harlow. He was willing and optimistic, sure, but highly unqualified. And a class-A douchebag who thought he was the hottest shit in all of Remnant. Kid had gotten knocked out by a couple of people before for his mouth, but never really learnt his lesson. The all had voiced their displeasure at sending him out, but they needed himself and the captain here to watch over the place, and the three others to remain behind to either man the communications equipment or get their belongings packed and ready to go in a moment's notice if they needed to split. Plus, they got word from Torchwick _directly_ that all F.O.B's were to try and include the new recruits in the raids, so as to give them more feild experince.

They all thought it highly idiotic, but orders were orders, even if they were coming from a pompous jackass who didn't give two shits about them.

" _Wolf Den, this is Shipment one."_ Joey's head turned to see their captain, a towering Bear Faunus named Jowskey who was built like a brick shithouse, turn to their main radio and take a seat at the table it sat on. " _Come in Wolf Den, this is Shipment One._ "

"Shipment One, this is Wolf Den." Jowskey's voice responded, in it's usual baratone bark. "Your late on the planned ETA, what happened."

" _We had a few complications,_ " The voice on the other end reported back, keeping their composure but stress evident in their voice. " _One of the people within the shop got ballsy and decided to play hero. We were able to apprehend him, but the shopkeep had a double barrel hidden away under the counter and unloaded it into Harlow."_

"How bad did you three fuck up." Jowskey scowled at the radio before he spit onto the old wooden floor as he turned back to it. The other two White Fang members had a moment of hesitation upon hearing the tower of a Faunas' response. Jowskey was normally the one whom was adament about keeping the lines as proffesional as possible, so hearing that from him really helped to emphasize how displeased he was with the new events. And hell, could he blame him? Everyone's nerves were on end from the new location, being so out in the public that they couldn't even wear their uniforms inside lest they be outed by a curious passerby, the afformentioned displeasure at being under the boot of a no-good human, and the pressure of their first actual mission in new, and quite frankly _dangerous_ territory.

" _Harlow's still alive. His aura was the only reason he wasn't eviscerated from how close he was._ " The voice on the other end retorted as he heard what Joey thought was traffic. Now that he thought about it, he was fairly certain the fact the kid had an aura was the only reason he was kept around to begin with. " _Problem is, his reaction to that was unload his gun into the shopkeep's head."_

"I very specifically said that there were to be _no casulties_." Jowskey growled into the reciever. "We do _not_ need this sort of publicity this early in our stages. Murder will get the police force on our asses _much_ faster then robbery."

" _Sir, with all do respect, we heavily voiced our opinion about bringing him onto this mission before hand._ " A new voice chimmed in over the radio. " _It isn't our fault that Torchwick insisted we bring along these new recruits without any proper training. We all knew that this wasn't a good idea from the get go._ "

Joey, as well as the four other Faunus in the room, went dead silent as they all eyed Jowskey at the rather angry response. He wasn't wrong, at least. Hell, even the captian knew the kid was bound to screw up sooner or later. Suprisingly, however, the said Bear Faunus rubbed a free hand on his face as he leaned one elbow onto the table and let out a sigh before pressing down on the talk button.

"You're right." Jowskey lamented as his eyes wandered around the room. Joey was suprised to see that, replacing the look of an stone cold-stern gaze was one of a hagard, annoyed man. It was rare for the man to let his frustration show through phyiscally, but he had been having an especially rough time with this whole relocation mixed in with the new change of leadership. Hell, that they _all_ had. Being run around by this sad excuse of a person who obviously veiwed them as nothing more then pawns was an almost inherrent spit in the faces of most, and the orders they recieved often did more to irritate them then to actually accomplish anything via these dust raids. While the runs made that were accompanied by Roman were successful, the jackass' carelessness had made their luck and other group's much more difficult. "How bad is the situation?"

" _As you can imagine, the shopkeep is dead. Harlow must've known how bad he screwed up, cause he just froze up for a moment before grabbing the bag and saying he was heading back to your location. As he ran out the_ door." The voice answered, joey practicly hearing the man's scowl from his words. _"He didn't leave Bouchard and I much of a choice, so we decided to cut our losses and get out of there. I'd imagine that the police have already arrived, didn't want to risk being apprehended."_ There was a few seconds of silence before the voice piped back up " _For what it's worth sir, we apolagize."_

"This is... problematic, but not lost. You made the right choice, so I cannot fault you for that. You can't be helped for Harlow's lack of experince. For right now, just make your way back and keep an eye out for that moron while your out. If you don't see him, we'll alert the other groups to keep an eye out for him and hope we can find him before the authorities do."

" _Do you want us to actively search for him sir, or head straight back?"_

"No, head straight back, we need what little we gained." Jowskey sighed as he seemed to mule over the possibilites. "While it would be less then favorable if he were to be caught, we cant risk completetly botching the operation. Hopefully he has enough sense to actually come back to Wolf Den. How long until you get back?"

" _ETA five minutes, sir. We're using some of the shortcuts that were provided in the briefings, luckily they're actually proving to be useful. We'll dispose of the vehicle, but be there shortly._ "

"All right, good." Jowskey sighed once more as he looked down at the table he rested on. "Stay safe out there, Shipment One. Wolf Den out."

And with that, he hooked the radio piece back onto the main speaker and just sat there in silence for a moment, the rest of the room processing the new turn of events as he did so. He paused to inspect a vanilla folder on the table top that had some papers in it with a sigh before he stood up from the table and made his way towards their kitchen.

"We still have that Atlesian Vodka, correct?" he questioned no one in particular as he opened up a cupboard. Joey could hear him moving bottles around before he apparnetly found what he was lookign for, grabbing a full bottle of the drink as well as a rack of shot glasses from the dryer that had been cleaned not too long ago. "I have a feeling that with how this is going to go, _this_ is going to be the only reprise we will get for the next couple of days."

* * *

True to their word, around five minutes later they heard a quick two knocks that were followed by five more at the front entrance of their hideout, Reynolds opening the door to reveal the two voices of Shipment One, Deniuad and Bouchard. They both walked in and set the bags down in the open room nearby, where they stored most of the equipment. Reynolds was quick to close and lock the door behind them, then went back to keeping watch outside the window as the two Faunus let out long sighs before making their way back to Captain Jowsky to report.

"I imagine you weren't followed." Jowskey said before he downed a shot of whiskey and wiped off his mouth with the back of his massive hand. Deniuad and Bouchard nodded confidently before Bouchard spoke up, apparently glad to have _something_ good to report.

"We dumped the vehicle at the pier right after our call ended and immediatetly made our way here." He spoke with his usual air of stoicness as they both looked upon their captain. His expression was slightly broken, however, when Jowskey in turn offered them both a glass and gestured for them to take a seat. Doing so gratefully, Jowskey poured the both a drink. He shot it back and swallowed before continuing. "We failed to spot Harlow on the way, but were succesful with carrying back all the dust we lifted from the shop, minus the bag he had grabbed in his haste to escape."

"Good to hear." Jowskey grumbled as he poured himself another glass before setting the now half empty bottle back down. "We'll deal with Harlow later, but for now, Deniuad. I need you to go upstairs and make an incident report, but don't send it out just yet. Wait for me to come approve it."

Deniuad nodded dutifully, finishing his drink before standing up and making his way to the staircase in the back. Joey had to give respect where respect was due, those two were probably the best on their whole team, asides from Jowskey, even if the man could be a cold-hearted bastard at times. Bouchard and Deniuad had joined the same time about a year and a half before he had, and had been nothing but an asset since their arrival into the White Fang. Something about being child workers in the SDC mines, feeling pissed off at the world for it, the usual. But hey, so long as they were here, they made his job easier, so less work for more food, drink and smokes? Hell, he had no complaints.

Turning back to the situation, however, Joey pulled out his packet of cigarettes before bringing out his lighter and lighting it. He leaned his head back and sighed before he noticed Reynolds eyeing him with out of the corner of his eye with a raised brow. He chuckled, but handed him the pack for the cheetah faunus to get one as well. Reynolds was a chill guy, so he didn't mind sharing.

"Bouchard, for right now, I want you to go and count out the dust vials for Deniuad's report. We can't forgive _complete_ slopiness, after all. "Jowskey commanded solemly. Joey noticed the slightest frown on Bouchard's face, but they both know that the captian wasn't faulting them. No, he was just annoyed with the whole situation, obviously. The kid had only been in for two weeks and was as green as they could come. He had already been deemed a major vulnerabilty to their group, but due to Torchwick's insistance that all the kid needed was feild training, he was brought out here. Much to their chagrin. "If that kid doesn't turn up within the next ten minutes, get ready to send out that report. We need to make sure-"

Whatever the captian was going to say, though, was cut off by the distinct sound of knocking at the door. Joey and Reynolds both brought up their weapons and aimed them at the door, Reynolds cursing himself under his breath for having had allowed himself to get distracted by the conversation. Everyone else in the room stood up and brought out their weapons as well, aiming towards the door as Bouchard stepped forward. There was a moment of silence before the knock came again, this time in two sporatic ones, followed by five more. With that, Reynolds opened the door to reveal a dishelved Faunus teen, before they stumbled in and tripped onto the floor. Reynolds quickly closed the door as Joey knelt down and grabbed Harlow by the collar.

"Were you followed?" Joey snarled at the kid as everyone surrounded him. Of course, he looked around in fear at the sudden hostility before he was shook roughly. " _Were. You. FOLLOWED._ "

"No! No, no, no!" the kid practically pissed himself as he shook his head vehemntly. Sure, it was uncharacteristic of Joey to get visibly angry, but he had to be certain. "I followed the path's you guys showed me, l-like you said!"

Joey's scowl calmed to a frown, but he was taken by suprise as a large figure bumped him out of the way and into the wall before they went to pick the kid up and put him on his feet. Looking up, Joey saw their captain look Harlow up and down, inspecting him.

"Are you injured?" The Bear Faunus asked calmly. Harlow seemed to relax a tad bit at the lack of anger in his captain's voice, and shook his head no.

"N-no sir." He swallowed before hefting up the bag of stolen dust. At least he had managed to grab that. "Aside's from the shotgun blast, I-i managed to get away. Even if those dumb-ass humans tried to get in my way, I got away without anyone else-"

Harlow was interrupted, however, with a loud sound of flesh hitting flesh, as Jowskey dug his fist into Harlow's gut, lifting the kid up off the ground and holding him in the air with one suspended arm as he glared into the teen's eyes.

"Without anyone else getting _murdered_." Jowskey finished for the teen, expression still eerily calm. He had lifted the teen up to eye level with him, and seeing as how Jowskey was a good 6 foot 8, Harlow was a good couple of feet off the ground with one arm as he clung to it, still in his gut. Harlow looked up, eyes streaming tears as he gasped and struggled to get his breath back in such a painful position.

"S-Sir, I-i'm s-s-sorry-y." The teen began to drool and snot with the tears, getting some on Jowskey's arm and causing the massive man's eyes squint in disgust before he tossed him off onto the ground, the kid cradleing the spot where Jowsky's fist had practically _enetered_ him, even if he was still intact. "P-P-Please, I-I-I didn't k-know w-what to d-d-do!"

"What you _did_ , kid, was royaly screw us all over." Jowskey spat onto the teen before kicking him onto his back. Aura or not, that had to _hurt_. "You have no idea how much flak we're gonna get from this. That we're _all_ gonna get from this."

The teen tried to apolagise more, but by this time all he could do is gasp and sputter patheticly. He tried to get a coherent sentence out, but was interrupted as the massive Bear Faunus introduced his mouth to the exquisite taste of his size 15 boot. Joey suddenly remembered of some of the stories he had heard about the man before he had joined up with them, like the times he'd round up survivors from villages they'd attacked and execute them, and began to wonder if the man wouldn't extend the same curtesy to one of their own. So as he watched Jowskey pick the kid up by his collar and start walking towards the direction of the basement, probably to make sure nobody would hear the kid scream, Joey debated whether he should try to say something, even if the kid was a massive shit-for-brains and Jowesky's anger sounded about as appealing as getting a rail spike rammed up his ass.

Right before the sound of a loud _thud_ echo'd out from the ceiling.

Everyone stopped what they were doing, even Harlow stopping his annoying cry-gasping, to look up at the ceiling and listen. Everyone was dead silent before Jowesky, once again, broke the silence.

"Deniuad?" The Bear Faunus called, not taking his eyes away from the ceiling as he pulled out his massive knife with one hand while he continued to hold Harlow by the other. "Deniuad, what happened?"

He was met with nothing but silence as they all continued to listen for anything, but the silence upheld itself. Jowesky turned and looked at Chefield before nodding up towards the ceiling, not taking a genius to figure out he wanted him to go upstairs and see what was up. Wordlessly, he nodded back before silently making his way towards the staircase, weapon drawn and creeping up to it before pointing the gun up to the top of the spiral staircase.

Right before something swung down and smacked him off of the stairs.

Joey aimed his gun towards the object that had struck his ally, along with the others, before it stopped moving enough for all of them to get a good look at _what_ exactly the object was. It was Deniuad.

Or, more specifically, what was left of him.

Harlow let out a scream upon seeing the body of his comrade hanging from his neck, and quite honestly, Joey really couldn't fault him, muttering his own obscenities under his breath as he quickly came over and grabbed Chefield by the collar of his shirt and drug him away to safety, even if he was pretty sure Deniuad wasn't going to be doing anything else to him. Ever again.

Deniuad was hanging by his neck from a noose fashioned by a plethora of networking chords they had left over from setting up their initial comms. But hell, he was suprised they were even holding him at all, seeing as how there was hardly anything left up there, everything above his mouth seemingly _eviscerated_ from some sort of blow to what was once his cranium. As blood flowed all over the rest of Deniuad and onto the floor, joey finally managed to regain his senses and turned back to face the captain, seeing his mouth agape as he finally let go of Harlow, who, bless his enthusiasm, grabbed the nearest gun and stood up, looking around frantically for whatever might have done this.

" _Sir?_ " Joey's voice was higher strung then usual. But then again, he had never seen someone this brutally killed before, especially someone he knew and somewhat respected. He saw the metaphorical gears turn in Powskey's brain as he turned to the table and picked up his 10 gauge shotgun, checking to make sure that it was loaded before turning to the front door.

"Reynolds, is the front porch clear?" He barked at the cheetah faunus, throwing subtlty out the window since it was obvious whoever- _or whatever-_ did this had already killed one of theirs. Reynolds turned to look out the window, peeking through the blinds as he scanned the road.

"There's no cars on the street, should we-JESUS CHRI-" He had randomly screamed, being startled by something they couldnt see due to the blinds as he tried backing away. But whatever sense of curiosity they had was destroyed as before he could fully escape, a hand had smashed through the window and grabbed the faunus by his face and, with one tug, yanked him out screaming. Joey amde to rush over and try to save him, but Bouchard grabbed him by his arm and yanked him back before he could move. He turned to yell at him, but stopped as Reynold's scream was cut short by a sickening sound akin to a snap, but much meatier, just outside the window.

They all stared, dumbstruck and silent, at the window where their friend had disappeared. With the quiet that had followed, you could have heard a fly whisper as everyone in the room dared not to make any sort of move.

That was, until, something outside decided to do it for them.

They heard the front porch creak with weight as something slowly strode across it, their eyes following the sound as it deafened all others in the silence surrounding them, semingly engulfing anything else that dared to challenge it's presence. It trecked it's way across the porch, until finally, it came to a stop before their front door. And as much as his mind willed his body to take a shot, to scream, to do _something_ , anything, he could just stand there, and only watch as the door knob began to turn.

Before a loud blasting noise tore through the silence, and the front door as well, as Jowskey's shot gun spat metallic fire through the wooden door and into whatever was trying to get in. Another followed after that, which was accompanied by yet another, until Jowskey had unloaded the weapon into the door as well as the wall, multiple holes revealing the dark night outside. Once again, in the wake of the torrent of hellfire that was a 10-guage, silence permiated the room as whatever effect Joey and the others had been under broke it's grasp from them as they readied their weapons towards the door. They slowly crept forward, Bouchard, Chefield and he, ready to copy their captain's previous response at anything that dared to move with an onslaught from their own weaponry. He tried to get a look through the holes Jowskey's weapon had created and try to spot what was out there, but even with his Faunus vision, there appeard to be nothing there.

He was proven wrong however, when something was thrown through the door frame, flying past them and striking Jowskey as the sheer force from it toppled him over and onto the ground. Jowskey managed to prop himself up on his elbows and threw the object off of him, before his eyes widened at what exactly the object was. It was Reynold's corpse, neck bent at a odd and painful angle and filled with large holes, looking to have served as a meat sheild from his shotgun blasts. Before he could even have a proper reaction, however, Jowskey looked up to regard his men, before his eyes widened even more at something behind the three, scrambling to reach his shotgun that was on the floor a few feet away from him. Joey was the first to turn, his reflexes coming in use for once during this whole situation as he trained his weapon on a shape that was now in the doorway.

But all he could do was scream out Chefield's name as it barreled forth toward's said faunus, raising a hammer into the air before bringing it down onto his head before he could even turn, showering the wall and itself with blood as the head split in two from the strike and causing his body to crumble like a sack of bricks. Bouchard, reacting faster than him, began to unload his weapon at the intruder as he gained it's attention.

The dust bullets however didn't seem to have any sort of effect, as a flash of black tinted with red appeared wherever the bullets struck on the intruder's body. In the time it took for Joey to realise that whatever this thing was had an aura to it, it had already reached the more seasoned trooper. By this time, he had dropped his now empty weapon to the floor and instead brought out the short sword strapped to his back as he tried to slash at the enemy. He at first missed as it dodged his blade, before bringing up it's bloodied hammer to block a second swing. But before he could pull his blade away for another strike, it's arm had reached out and wrapped itself around Bouchard's sword arm, twisting it with the sound of bone breaking as Bouchard dropped his weapon and snarled in pain, his arm being forced down by the intruder as it used it's free hand to reach behind it's back and pull out what seemed to be a cleaver before it plunged the blade deep into Bouchard's chest, the faunus' eyes shooting open in pain and shock as the blade was wrenched out of his chest before coming down a second time just below it, almost disappearing into him as the attacker dropped him to the ground. Bouchard looked to Joey, his eyes still wide as he tried to speak.

Instead, all that came from his mouth was blood as the cleaver was ripped from his chest, continuing to look on at his comrade with a expression that was a mixture of pain and shock. Until Joey realised, that is, that he was looking _through_ him instead, the life in his comrade's eyes having faded out as blood began to pool around his body from his wounds. That was when his eyes trailed back to the intruder who was inside their base, covered in the blood and gore of his four dead fellow White Fang as he wiped the blade clean on Bouchard's body before standing upright and putting it back in it's sheath. Finally, it turned to look at him, giving the fox faunus a chance to finally get a clear look at the attacker since it had entered, taking a momentary break from tearing through walls and people to regard him.

What stood before him was what he assumed to be a man at over six feet tall and with a beefy body. He wore what appeared to once have been a white dress shirt, now stained with a mixture of yellows, blacks and a _lot_ of reds with sleeves that were rolled up to the elbow to reveal muscular forearms that were covered with gloves and black leather bracers. With that he wore a brown tie drapped over a black apron, falling over black dress pants that revealed black leather boots, cracked and withered with age. And even with this rather strange ensemble of clothing, none of it could take away from what lay above it all on the head.

On the face of the assailant was a mask. A head of white, covered with long, black hair that sprouted from the top of it's head and down too it's sides, some strands looming over the face in an effort to hide it. The face, that was stained from multiple smears of red and black and was covered in stitches and staples all across it from multiple tears. Accompanied by that were two black eyes that, even though they were cut open, he couldn't see the real ones behind them as they turned to address him. All he could see, however, was a full-toothed snarl of white teeth from underneath a jagged mouth that stuck out from the rest of black flesh that remained under the mask.

And yet, while Joey was fully taking in the look of his assailant, he failed to realise that the figure was now right in front of him, the black voids of it's eyes boring into his skull as he finally blinked, realising where he was again and how much danger he really was in.

But as he tried to remedy the situation with a prescription of a fully automatic dust rifle, his attempts were faltered by the man bringing his knee up to his chest and kicking him square in the stomach, sending him across the room and into the wall, cracking the wooden structure before he fell to the ground as he tried to remember how to breath. Feeling like he had just been struck by a frieght train, the kick had knocked all the air straight out of him while he tried to stand once again before halfway up, yet another kick from the masked killer planted itself square in his temple, sending his skull bouncing off the wall with a loud _snap_ noise as another crack was formed in the wall. And to his credit, Joey didn't get knocked out from that, but he had wished he was as he now felt as though someone was prodding his brain with a rail spike as he slumped against the wall, gripping his head from where the boot had struck to find it was met with the hot, sticky mess that was his blood. He flopped over, his back on the wall as he looked up to his attacker who frowned down at him, hair obscuring most of it's face as it tilted it's head to the side. All Joey could do was look up at the figure with a face scrunched with pain as he held his ribs, spitting out blood in the direction of the attacker.

"Well," he spat out "What are you waiting for, you Mistral Chainsaw Massacre wannabe mother _fucker_."

Joey was a little suprised as he could have sworn the attacker seemed to _snort_ to itself at that, seeming to have found his insult funny. Glad to see this asshole could find humor in butchering his entire team, cause hell know's he couldn't. But, before he could provide a stand up special for the deranged murderer, they were reminded of the fact that there _were indeed_ other people still alive as they both heard the sound of a motor whirring to life as a door exploded behind them, the figure whipping it's head around to see no other then Jowesky, having had kicked through the basement door after retrieving something to replace his shotgun, that something being a weaponised chainsaw that, even though he had seen him carrying it around on his back before, had never once seen the captain start up, let alone use.

"You want a fight, you worthless shit-stain!?" The massive man bellowed as he charged towards the attacker through the kitchen and into the main room as the chainsaw roared. " _Then come fucking get one!_ "

And yet, as the chainsaw-weilding titan charged towards it, the masked killer only reached for his hammer with his left hand as he reached up with his right to block a downward slash with his forearm, his aura flairing as it worked to protect him from the deadly weapon. And yet, as Jowesky pushed down on the attacker, it failed to do much and he didn't buckle nor falter, just pushing back his forearm as he brought the hammer up with his other arm to strike Jowesky in the face. Seeing the attack, the bear faunus quickly back-stepped as he narrowly avoided the attack, this time jumping to the left before coming back, trying to slash the weapon upwards towards the masked man's chest. He missed however, as well as with the downward slash that followed that. But he didn't miss, however, when he drove his shoulder into the man's face.

What would have normally sent anyone else off their feet and into the wall, only made the attacker stumble back a few feet and clutch the area where it had been struck. While it took the hit like a champ, Joey knew that no matter what, getting hit by the brick house that was Captain Jowesky was going to hurt no matter what. Seeing the opening, Jowesky charged forth once more, bringing the chainsaw up for a side swipe and hoping to catch the man in the midsection, hopefully to try and cut him in two before he can get his aura up to block it. But, instead of that, the masked intruder saw the attack and brought the hand weilding the hammer up in the air, ready to bring it down on the bear faunus. Jowesky snarled, but readied his aura to muffle the blow from his enemy so as to carry through with his attack.

What he wasn't expecting, however, was for the hammer to strike him on the shoulder and creating a bloody hole in his back as he let out a pained scream, the attacker side stepping him while sticking his leg out to ensure that Jowesky tripped onto the floor, landing on the wounded area and sucking in air through his teeth.

Joey watched from his spot proped against the wall, confusion evident in his face as he watched the attacker allow his captain to get back onto his feet. His eyes followed the now profusely bleeding spot on his captian's back. The Captain's aura was supposed to have protected him from that attack, and yet, there it was, a giant god-damn wound on his back, the aura having had failed in preventing it. At first, he considered the fact that the swing was simply powerful enough to have completetly broken through the aura in one go. And while that was a scary thought to entertain, he quickly dismissed it as he realised that if that had been the case, Jowesky's aura would have flashed before sputtering out, like most aura's do when they've been broken. But, that was contradicted as he saw Jowesky's brown colored aura begin to pool around the wound in an inane attempt to fix it.

Joey's mussings were interrupted as he saw his captain fight through the hit he had suffered, instead going in for a low swing with the chainsaw so as to best work around the inury and still fight. That effort was futile though, as the attacker used it's hammer to hook the head and the handle under the blade and throw it into the air and out of Jowesky's hands, causing his should to flair in even more fiery pain as his wound was stretched by the movement. That wasn't all, however, as the hammer was swung back downwards and into his kneecap as the attacker side stepped him once again, this time allowing him to fall to the floor weaponless as the bear faunus screamed through his teeth at the broken kneecap, his aura having had once again failed to have prevented the blow.

Jowesky banged the back of his head on the floor as he clutched the broken limb, face scrunched up in pain as the attacker slowly sauntered over to him to tower over the giant of a faunus, who was now reduced to a broken victim on the floor. The captain's eyes shot open as he glared violently at the masked killer, seething enough to the point to where he was almost _frothing_.

" ** _An admirable attempt._** " The man spoke for the first time since entering. His voice was deep and gravelly, sounding like he did nothing but smoke instead of breath and drink whiskey instead of water. " ** _For someone as revolting as you..._** **"**

" _Fuck you, you worthless asshole!_ " The bear faunus gritted through his teeth. "You think you're gonna get away with this? Attacking a White Fang hideout? We'll find you, and we're gonna make you regret ever being born, you shit-stain racist _fuck!_ "

" ** _Oh, I wasn't referring to your heritage._** " The man growled out as he planted his foot onto Jowesky's knee and causing the man to thrash in pain as he ground his foot into the broken area. " ** _I'm more concerned with your actions. The actions that you are responsible for, Captain Adrian Jowesky._** "

While the captain was too busy thrashing in pain, Joey managed to be suprised for him by the mention of his full name. This guy knew who he was?

" _ **March 21st, Eastern Vale,**_ _ **Fourteen accounts of murdering innocent people in cold blood. You executed fourteen people who were guilty of nothing more than being born human.**_ " Joey's mussings were interrupted as their assailant glared down at the captain. He snarled at him as he twisted his foot once more, causing the captain to try and swing a fist at the man. It was met with a hammer midway, completetly breaking off one finger and breaking the others into magled pieces. " ** _For a group originally made to end the treatment of Faunus as violent animals, you sure seem ready to fulfill that stereotype_**."

" _YOU ALL, SHALL PAY, FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO US!_ " Jowesky screamed at the man as he cradled his mangled hand. "You shall _all_ feel the pain we've endured! For every one of our's you've killed, we'll take that many, tenfold!"

Joey could do nothing more than watch, as the captain began to break down from his usual, controlled self. He had never seen the man like this before, he'd never thought it was even _possible_ for him to shout. But, it seemed that whatever barriers he had set up for himself in life, from all the discipline he had ben taught over his years in the White Fang, were being broken down as he screamed at the killer. Because, deep down, They all knew.

They knew that Captain Jowesky was about to die.

But despite the bear faunus's uncharacteristic threats, the killer just stared down at him with a tilted head, watching as the massive man was being wilted down to a dying faunus who was watching death approach, and could do seemingly nothing about it.

He looked like he wanted to say something. Like he might continue to argue the dying faunus's view of the world, or even start monologuing. He turned his head to look at the dead bodies behind him, keeping the struggling man pinned underneath his foot as he muled over something in his head.

Until he whirled around and brought his hammer down onto the bear faunus's, completly obliterating the top half of his skull in one swing as he embedded his hammer into the floor.

Joey couldn't find it in himself to yell for his captain. Couldn't try and get up to save him, or even try to reach for his weapon. Instead, he just watched as the killer swung down once more, annihilating the rest of the captain's head from the neck up, like he wanted to be absolutetly certain that he wasn't going to get back up. Not that he would've, but he did it regardless. After the second time, he stepped away from his corpse and inspected it, like he was waiting to see if the dead man would try to get back up. Joey couldn't help but follow his gaze, and upon seeing the damage that had been dealt, promptly threw up the contents of his stomach onto the floor next to him from the sight.

Like he said, he may have seen dead people before, but nothing quite as brutal as this.

Turning his eyes back to the one responsible for this, he saw the gore covered man wander over to the now-deceased captain's discarded weapon, the chainsaw that was currently lying on the floor. He picked up the logging-tool-turned-weapon and seemed to inspect it before pulling on the lever and starting it back up to life, inspecting it as he fed the engine with the dust inside, the blade roaring loudly. The man slowly turned towards him, and for a moment Joey thought he was going to come and finish the job. But instead, he completetly looked past him and rounded on a huddled shape in the corner that let out a high pitched whine upon being spotted. It was Harlow, who he had completetly forgotten even existed until now due to hiding for the entirety of the fight.

Hell, calling it a fight was being far too optimistic. This was an all-out slaughter.

Hudled in the corner with the pistol he had picked up earlier clutched in his hands, Joey watched as the teen stood up before pressing his back against the wall and pointing said weapon at the chainsaw-weilding killer, his hands shaking violently. Joey wasn't suprised to see that the kid had went and pissed himself in terror, but honestly he couldn't fault him for it. He believed not a single one of them would have thought that they would all be killed far away from home in a shitty slum neighborhood by a masked lunatic when they originally signed up. Then again, who would've?

" ** _I suppose I should be thanking you,_** _ **Mr. Harlow**._" The Masked Man droned out as he slowly stepped closer to the terrified young man, dragging the tip of the chainsaw blade behind him as he did so. As Joey wiped the rest of vomit away from his mouth, he could see the twisted grin coming from those pearly white teeth underneath the mask. Whoever the hell this psychopath was, he sure as hell knew how to ham it up. " ** _If it weren't for you, it would have probably taken another month or so for me to have found this place._** "

Harlow didn't respond, and instead managed to finally scrounge up one ounce of courage during this whole ordeal to finally take a shot at the man who had killed almost everyone out of their seven faunus squad. But as they both knew it would, the shot did nothing, just bounced of the maniac's head as his aura shielded him from it. With that, he dropped the gun to the ground and tried to press his body even further into the wall, as if he could phase through it and hopefully escape this nightmare. But, despite all the kid's hope, whatever form of semblance he was praying would come and save him was nowhere to be found. Instead, all that answered him was the sound of a chainsaw being riled up as the man hefted the blade into the air, sneering at the cowering piss-covered teen before him.

" ** _But I don't thank spineless cowards._** "

Harlow let out one more scream for mercy, but was instead met with the blade of the chainsaw being rammed into his stomach and through the wall. Joey was horrfied, but couldn't manage to take his eyes away from the carnage as he saw his aura try to do something about the giant chainsaw within him, but was essentially useless as it began to tear it's way upwards, Harlow's screams of pain soon being muffled as instead blood began to flow from his mouth as the motorised weapon worked it's way up his chest as he thrashed around violently, until it eventually made it's way to the neck, then the chin, and finally through the top of his head, his mangled corpse falling to the floor as his innards spilled out to the wooden floor.

Joey couldn't find it in himself to puke again, but if he had anything left in his stomach to spill out, he most certainly would have. Instead, all he could do was look at the man responsible for the death of his whole team, who was currently standing in the middle of the room absolutetly _drenched_ in blood and specked with bits of flesh from a micture of different people. He stared at the hole in the wall he had made when he was busy sawing Harlow in half, before turning around and stepping the direction of the kitchen. Joey sat there, listening to the sound of heavy footfalls echoing throughout the house as the man held the chainsaw by it's handle before he heard the _thunk_ of it being set down on what sounded like the kitchen counter. Not daring to move, the fox faunus listened intently to the noises to possible hear what he was doing.

What he heard was the sound of the faucet being turned on followed by the sound of someone washing their hands. After a second of that, he heard the footsteps walk towards his direction again before he saw the man turn towards the basement and disappear downstairs for a minute. Joey looked to his weapon halfway across the room, then towards the empty doorway to the basement, and considered trying to escape while the man was downstairs.

For some reason, he couldn't see himself getting very far.

And besides, by the time he would've been able to get to the doorway, the man had already appeared in the kitchen again, seeing now that the chainsaw was attatched to his back, the harness for the weapon having been located and strapped to his back as he stepped towards him. Joey flinched, but the man stopped before he could come any closer, his eyes having been caught by something on the table. He picked up a pile of papers that he saw Jowesky shuffling with earlier, seeming to read over them before he grunted and walked back over to Jowskey, crouching down and holding the papers up to Joey's face.

" ** _What are these._** " The man grunted as Joey looked over the papers. He saw a picture of a kid with blond hair and blue eyes looking into the camera, with the name _Jaune_ next to it, age and info being listed by the side. Joey read over it before remembering the papers Chefield were tasked with transfering over to one of their intel groups the day prior. He hoped that they weren't expecting him to show up anytime soon.

"Falsified Entrance papers to Beacon Academy." Joey answered as he leaned his head back from the wall, partly from the nausua of the man covered in the remains of his now deceased allies who were currently spread all over the room, the other part just being a testament of how strained his mind was with the fact that this man was probably going to kill him. "Not really something we're normally tasked with, but the same could be said for a lot of shit we've been doing recently. Supposedly the idea was to sneak in spies to the schools, but we never really got around to utilising it. I think that kid was just trying to cheat his way in or something."

The man grunted once more as he turned the papers back to him and inspected them again before folding them up and putting them into his pocket, one that suprisingly _wasn't_ drenched in blood.

" ** _Were can I get these altered._** " He questioned as he wandered over to the table to pick up the bottle of Atlesian vodka they had been drinking from before all hell had broken loose within the house. Joey thought to himself as he tried to remember the address Chefield had been told to run these too when he got the chance. He debatted trying to give hima false address, but he _really_ didn't want to push his luck at the moment.

"Up on the 46th precint on Revel street, one of the warehouses has a couple of workers there who are in charge of it." Joey answered truthfully. He was sure if the higher ups found out he was telling this killer all of this info willingly, they'd have his head. But to be honest, he'd rather deal with their ire then this asshole's wrath. "Look for a white clawmark on the side of the building, it's normally small and hidden behind something like a dumpster."

The man turned to regard him for a second from where he was standing, his scruitinising gaze boring into his skull once more as he felt his skin crawl. He locked eyes with the man for a total of five seconds before he strode forward to him once more, this time reaching for him. Joey closed his eyes and took ina deep breath from his nose, waiting for the pain to erupt.

Instead, he felt hands reach into his shirt pocket and pull something out before he opened his eyes and saw the man take a cigarrete from his pack and light it with his lighter. Suprisingly enough, he took out another and offered it to the faunus, eyeing him weariliy but accepting his own cigarrete nonetheless as the killer lit it up for him. He took a deep inhale from the cigarrete as the masked man did the same, a solemn silence filling the room as the two sat in silence and puffed away on some Marlcoro Reds.

At least, it would have been, if it weren't for all the blood and dead bodies.

"So, can I ask why you haven't killed me yet?" Joey decided to push his luck as he flicked some ash onto the floor, knowing Jowesky would've been pissed if it weren't for his sudden lacking of a head. "This just some mind game your playing or something?"

" _ **I've read up on you, Joey.**_ " The man exhaled as he pocketed the packet and lighter, making his way back over to the dead bodies before patting down Harlow's pants pocket, fishing out his wallet and grabbing a couple hundred lien from it before tossing it to the side as he took another drag from his cigarrete. " _ **I know that you originally joined the more peaceful side of the White Fang, before being forced to join the terrorist faction the year before. I know of your efforts of trying and get shipped over to Menagerie and work there instead of Vale. And I know that you were once de-ranked for trying to keep humans alive during the last raid you were forced to attend.**_ "

If it weren't from the possible head trauma he had suffered from the boot to the face earlier, Joey probably would have ben freaked out that this knew so much about his history in the White Fang. That, mixed with him mentioning the time Jowesky murdered those humans from before, made him wonder just what the hell was really going on with this guy.

"So, what, you some sorta vigilante or something?" Joey asked lazily as he prodded his head wound and flinched away from the wound. Unlike the others, he didn't have a magical force feild that could heal the damn thing for him. The man ingored him, however, as he instead went over to Jowesky's body and pocketed what was at least a couple thousand lien. Joey refrained from commenting on the man taking cash from the bodies of his dead victims, lest he wanted his innards to become his outards. After taking what he could, the man grabbed one of the bags full of dust Bouchard and Deniuad had brought back before sticking the bottle of vodka in it and making his way to what remained of the front wall of the house before stopping at the doorway, listening to something in the distance. Joey listened in as well, and sure enough, he heard the sound of police sirens closing in from the distance. "Jesus, took 'em long enough. The cops in this town really are useless."

The man seemed to grunt in approval as he stood there and just looked out to the city skyline. Joey, deciding to push his luck, worked his way up to standing before shuffling over to the wall and looking out as he puffed away on his cigarrete. They stood in silence for a moment before the masked man stepped down the front porch stairs and turned right, walking away as Joey stood there, watching him.

"So, does that mean i'm good to go?" He called after the man. Without turning around, he growled back to him.

" _ **Don't let me see you again.**_ "

"Don't have to tell me twice." Joey mumbled to himself as he patted down his person, making sure he had everything on him so he wouldn't leave anything behind that could let the police identify him. When he looked back towards the direction that the stranger had been walking, the man was nowhere to be found. Not being able to say he was surpised, Joey grabbed a piece of bandage to wrap around his head and a beanie to cover it up before walking off in the opposite direction of the chainsaw-weilding-maniac. As he began treating his head wound while walking, Joey thought of the people who were, not even up until thrity minutes ago, the group of Faunus he had been working in a terrorist organisation with in order to forcefully achieve equality with humans, and how he was the only one who could walk away from it with his life. He also thought about how he could report to one of the other nearby hideouts about what happened. They would more than likely spread the news to everyone else within their faction in the city, they would be on high alert and on the lookout for this maniac, and would probably make him suffer some serious consequences for having had willingly told him all of this important information so he wouldn't be killed.

Instead, he decided that he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and instead wipe away the blood on his face, put on his hat to cover up the wrappings, and go rent a hotel with some booze so he could drink the rest of the night away, and forget that any of this shit ever happened.


	2. Where Next to Conquer?

**Where Next to Conquer?**

The old iron door burst open as his boot kicked it ajar and stepped in. He then used that same foot to kick it back closed, the sound of the door banging echoing down the staircase as he descended them. Making it to the bottom, he then set the bag full of 'appropriated' stolen dust on top of the nearest table before pulling off both of his gloves to set them aside as well. With that, he walked across the basement area to get to the sink on the other side. Turning the faucet on to dispense cold water, he began to wash the blood that had gotten past his gloves off of his hands before cupping them to splash some handfuls of water off of his mask. Looking into the mirror above the sink, he saw that while the blood wasn't having an especially hard time coming off the face area, he was going to have to do something about the hair. With that mental note made, he turned away to walk over to yet another table, this one having three head busts standing atop them. He regarded the two that were currently in use, before looking to the empty one and reaching up behind his head with both hands to pull the strings on the back of his mask undone. Upon having done so, he carefully began to pull the mixture of latex and iron off of his head, turning it to face him and inspecting it closely for any damages before gently setting it onto the empty bust, it's empty eyeholes staring ahead and seemingly watching him as he walked away.

He debated taking a seat on the couch and really getting a chance to relax, but if he were to sit on it covered in blood and gore he would ruin it. So he would have to take a shower before he could do that, but for right now, he just wanted to take a seat and rest his legs for a couple of minutes before doing anything else. He had been walking and fighting all night, he thought he deserved a second or two to sit and unwind before he went and did anything else.

So, pulling out a collapsible metal chair and bringing it over to the main living area, he sat down before reaching for the remote on the coffee table and turning on the t.v.

As some sort of reality t.v. show began to fill the decently sized room with it's characters complaining about menial things, he leaned over to start undoing the laces of his boots before tugging both of the bloodied footwear off and setting them down to his side. As he wiggled his toes, he changed the channel off of the primed plastic forms speaking of their breast implants over to some sort of nature documentary. He saw some form of snake slither quietly through some grass behind a mouse, looking ready to strike it's prey. He watched distractedly as he pulled that packet of cigarettes he had taken from that faunus earlier and took out a single cigarette, tossing the packet onto the coffee table next to some others he had actually _purchased_ before reaching for his zippo lighter and lighting it. He continued to watch the large holographic screen as the mouse was now having it's head ripped off by the snake, this species seeming much more interested in killing the creature than actually eating it. He took a drag while watching the scene for a few more seconds before changing the channel again.

If he wanted to watch insignificant creatures die, he'd go out and kill more criminals. But he had satiated that taste for awhile.

Instead, the channel had finally switched to something much more interesting, a news report with a talking head looking towards the camera with an expression of emotional emptiness as her grating voice read of the teleprompter behind the camera. Next to her, was a aerial shot of a small two story house in the suburbs that upon zooming in closer, saw the entrance completely torn from it's foundations as police officers were scene inspecting the inside, loading up body bags to carry away from the crime scene. It was the house that the White Fang had been hiding out in. He let out a small snort when he saw one of the officers have to bring in a stack of new bags to deal with the separate pieces of what was left of the group. Not his bloodiest work, but not bad, either. His musings were interrupted however when the talking head's words finally began to catch his attention.

" _In latest news, violence has struck all across our peaceful city, with four separate counts of what appears to have been small scale 'gang wars' erupting across downtown Vale last night. In these neighborhoods, the communities were interrupted from their normally peaceful and quiet living conditions, to instead be subjected to a carnage-fueled nightmare. We have Tom on the scene, live. What say you, Tom?"_

Finally, the one woman's annoying voice finally quieted itself, the one with the name Lisa Lavender. He took another hit of his cigarette as it instead switched over to a on-the-scene view, a man wearing a white button up and tie looking far out of place from the surrounding skeletal meth-heads, gore covered cops and body bags.

Peaceful living conditions, his ass. The places had been like that _before_ he had arrived. He just added a couple more bodies to the already-growing pile that was enough to make people finally notice.

" _Lisa, I'm here at the last of the attacks from the night before that police discovered not too long ago, where the_ six _dead bodies of mutilated Faunus, who police believe were associated with the terroristic White Fang group, were found, strewn across the house in different states, and pieces."_

" _This was also, not the only place to have been attacked last night, three other houses having been struck as well. While not all of the bodies have been identified, from what I've gathered from the police, we're suspecting a death toll from late last night to early this morning of somewhere between thirty, to forty people."_

He watched as the man named Tom seemed to spot someone of interest, trying to make his way over to them as the cameraman followed. He saw them approach two cops speaking about something before he rudely interrupted them, sticking his microphone in their faces. They both gave him angry looks, but Tom started firing off questions before they could comment on his lack of respect.

" _Excuse me, officer, what have you been able to gather from the crime scene so far?"_ he questioned. The officer looked like he wanted to punch the man in the face, but sighed and opted to rub the bridge of his nose instead, probably realizing that decking a news hand on live t.v. probably wasn't the best idea. Even if it would have been a satisfying one.

" _Well sir, since you asked so_ politely." He put a lot of emphasis on the word as he looked at the news man. He waited for a response, but only got a questioning gaze of raised eyebrows and mouth slightly agape, much like a four year old asking a parent why the sky was blue for the tenth time in a row. " _I'm afraid that there's not much we could tell you, even if we_ wanted _to. I'm afraid that whoever these attacks were conducted by, were highly proficient in their jobs and had a serious bone to pick."_

" _Officer, do you believe the allegations that these events, as well as the ones similar that have been occurring the past couple of months, are indeed some product of gang activity increasement within Vale,_ especially with _the rise of White Fang groups?"_ Tom questioned once again, despite the officer being clear in just how much he _didn't_ want to talk to this man.

" _No comment._ " He had answered simply before he and his companion turned to walk away. Tom and his cameraman attempted to follow, beginning to shout about how "The people have a right to know!" and all that. As another cop came to start leading the pair away from the scene, however, Tom decided now was the perfect time to have bumped into one of the men carrying the body bags in a stretcher away. And as he toppled over, so did the body bag, the cameraman watching as the bag tore open and revealed it's contents inside.

Tom began to yell in horror as he tried to scramble away from the carcass that had been split up the middle, the remains of the guy who had unkowingly led him to their small base to begin with. The cameraman, not seeming to know whether he should turn away or not, continued to film as Tom screamed in the background before the two officers from before came into the shot, one trying to cover up the body while the other put his hand over the camera lens and blacking out the view. it didn't make much of a difference, however, as the feed was cut straight back to the anchor room from before, The Lavender woman staring shocked at the camera as some yelling went on in the background.

Sounded like dear old Tom was probably going to lose his job from that slip up.

" _I... I don't..._ " She seemed at a loss for words, having an expression that was suprisingly _not_ bored and monotone. He watched as the cog's turned in her head, probably beginning to realise that there was an actual association between the people she always carelessly spoke of dying on the news, and the dead body that she, and probably the rest of Vale, had accidently displayed.

He wouldn't put it past her to completelty throw out that thought, however, and instead just be horrified over how much flak their whole channel was going to get over showing a mangled corpse over live air too thousands upon thousands of veiwers. He couldn't tell, not like he could see into her head.

" _I-it seems as though we've managed to get some insight on who one of the suspects for these attacks are._ " She managed to regain her mental footing and tried her best to gloss over the accident. He perked up, curious to see what they had apparently "found out", but not too worried about it. He always made _damn_ sure that he never had any slip ups with his costume that would reveal his face. " _It seems that, one of our professional sketch artists was able to get a statement from one of the survivors from the attacks tonight. Apparently, from the few incident reports that we've had of the_ only reported survivor _, that there was simply... One man. One man involved in the attack. Now whether we know if he was just responsible for this specific instance, or all four of the attacks, we cannot say for certain. What we_ can _say for certain, however, is that_ _I believe we have a sketch ready to display, if someone could put that up._ "

He extinguished the last of the cigarette in the closest ash tray as he leaned forward in his seat to listen more intently on the report. For a second he considered that Faunus named Joey, but threw out the idea after a second when he realised that if he even had gone to the police, they probably would have been curious as to his involvment to the attack. And seeing as how he was a faunus who has a small record in the White Fang, it wouldn't take a genius to put two and two together and arrest him. If he were to guess, it was more than likely one of the women from the meth house he had hit first that night. While sure, she had had a needle sticking out of her arm when he had broken in, it wasn't anywhere as near as concerning as the five gangbangers sitting around the table, practically slamming their own faces into the coke on the table after having had completed a successful drive by. _That_ had sure as hell been interesting.

And sure enough, up on the screen was a profile sketch of him, the artist having had actually done an impressive job, seeing as how his source material was coming from a methed-up prostitute. While he hadn't gotten everything off of her, seeing as how she hadn't had much of a chance to see him sit still while he was smashing through the bodies of the men before they could realise that the masked man with a hammer smashing through them in fact _wasn't_ a hallucination, they had a pretty decent idea. It showed his mask, the eyes and mouth being completelty black underneath with the hair falling down to it's sides. It also showed his chest area, with the top of his apron and tie. And while they had gotten the shirt and tie the wrong color, and his hair most certainly wasn't _that_ messy, it wasn't bad. He looked a lot more like some sort of monstorous creature from a nightmare, but it had gotten most of the detail correct.

And as he heard the Lavender woman rattle off the usual " _If you see this man, do not approach him and please contact the police immediatetly_.", he took the remote and shut the t.v. off, staring into the blank holographic screen for a moment before sighing and standing up.

So they knew what he looked like while he did his work, did they. And while this wasn't exactly the _greatest_ of news, he tried not to worry about it too much. It wasn't exactly like he walked around in his outfit in broad daylight, anyways. Besides, a plus was, with having seen not only a drawing of what he looked like, but also the carnage he had caused tonight, he hoped that it would have an effect on any dumbass with a gun from trying any shit anytime soon. It would do this city good to see a drop in the crime rate.

And yet, as he stood up and walked into the kitchenette, he knew that it wouldn't last for long. So long as this world went around, their would still be these miserable shit-stains who would burn down an orphanage if it meant a quick buck. The pieces of shit, like Jowesky, who no matter how many he would put down, two more would take his place.

And besides, he thought to himself as he put on a cup of coffee, if there weren't anyone trying to burn the world to the ground, who would he be able to allow himself to vent with? It was far too much effort to get in and out of the city in order to seek his release with the Grimm, and the thought of becoming a god-damned-Huntsman nearly made him laugh.

With the coffee maker whirring to life, he began to strip down out of he blood soaked clothes, setting them down in a nearby clothing basket before making his way to the shower and turning on the the shower head. As he waited for the water to warm up, he turned to a machine just a few feet away and switched it on to life. It was a modern day Juke Box, one he had taken the extra time to _borrow_ from one of the bars he had dealt with about a month back. And while it was a pain in the ass to carry the thing half way across town discreetly while _not_ letting anyone see him in his blood covered outfit, it was most certainly worth the effort as he hit his playlist on shuffle, music blasting through the speakers as he began to nod along with it.

" _ **Tears fall, from eyes. Not sure, what has been done.**_ " He heard the voice of a man from another world growl through his speakers, the sheer brutality of the song doing wonders to help him calm and relax as he stepped into the now warm water. " _ **Sorrow creeps, throughout my soul. All is lost, none, have, won.**_ "

He managed the smallest of smiles as the water crept through his hair as it stuck to his shoulders, running his hands through it as the water washed away the blood soaked onto his body through his clothes. As the floor began to turn a crimson red as water mixed with blood, he looked down to his body and inspected it, seeing that his aura had actually managed to keep him from getting a scratch tonight. He supposed that he was getting better at it.

" _ **Through time, war prevails. Thoughts, fears, cast aside.**_ "

And as his eyes fell down to his hand, seeing the two inch scar running along the back that matched the one on the palm, his mind flashed back to that night for the first time in a while, suprisingly. He watched the water trickle over the ravaged skin, holding the appendage up to his face as he turned it slowly to inspect like he had so many times before. He flexed it, the physical pain having had left years ago after he came here.

And yet, the painful memories still remained, the events being far more painful then any sort of broken bone, stab wound, or gun shot he had ever faced. Even if he tried more and more to forget about them when he wasn't out working, they were still there.

In the back of his mind, they would _always_ remain there, until he wished to retrieve them.

To retrieve _him._

" _ **Face the consequnce, alone. With Honor. Valor. Pride."**_

* * *

"Holy _shit._ "

If it weren't for the fact that Ruby was still processing what she had just seen on the news, she would have chidded her sister for using such foul language. Instead, she stood there in the kitchen doorway, plate of cookies still in her hands as she watched the news woman have a similar expression as hers.

"Well, _Somebody's_ gonna lose their job after letting that happen." Her father, Taiyang commented with a hint of a sigh as he continued to pet the sleeping dog in his lap from his place on the couch. "Christ, that looked like one helluva way to go."

"Who could've done that?" Yang questioned as she turned to her father, a slightly sickened expression on her face. The sickness turned to horror as she saw her sister out of the corner of her eye and turned to address Ruby. "Ruby, when did you get back!? I thought you were still hanging out with your friends?"

"I was, but Tyler apparently had to go help his mother with some errands, and just said we could re-schedule for tomorrow." She muttered out as she walked over to the couch and sat down with the plate, sitting between her father and her older sister absently. "What happened?"

"Some crazy member of a gang went around Vale last night and apparently killed a lot of people." Taiyang answered with a scowl as a artist's sketch was put up on the screen. Upon seeing the drawing of a man that looked like a monster, he couldn't help but feeling the smallest bit of unease from it. Not that he was scarred of the man himself. This was obviously some mentally-ill psychopath with a axe to grind. If the two met in a dark alley, a crazy guy against a seasoned Huntsmen, he knew who would be walking away from a fight.

But it wasn't him he was worrying about. He looked to his two daughters, and focused on his oldest Yang, who was going to be enrolling in Beacon not too long from now. And even if he was confident in his daughter's ability to protect herself, he still couldn't quell that smallest bit of worry he felt for her.

"Eh, I could take him." Said blond shrugged as she grabbed a cookie of of her sister's plate, causing the girl to forget about the televised gore she just saw and instead start swiping at her sister in frustration. With that, Taiyang couldn't help but laugh at the sight of his two daughters quarreling over the chocolate chip snacks. And as he turned back to the t.v. to see that they had cut to a commercial break, he managed to sweep that feeling of worry away as he reached for a cookie himself while Ruby was distracted. He was fully confident in there abilities to protect themselves, especially from someone who parades around in a halloween costume.

So confident, in fact, that he started to run away when he saw Ruby reach for her Crescent rose when she saw him eating another of her cookies, grabbing an armful and laughing maniacly.

* * *

After having had finally toweled himself off, he wrapped it around his waist and walked over to his now ready cup of coffee, deciding to not add and sugar or creamer to it and just drinking it black while getting out a pan to start cooking some eggs.

And after he had made himself a plate full, he walked over with both it and his coffee back to the couch, finally able to relax on his nice couch without getting other people's blood all over it. He allowed himself to lean his head back and rest his eyes for a minute, letting out a long sigh as he began to unwind and listen to the music that always managed to calm him.

" _ **AUSHWITZ, THE MEANING OF PAIN, THE WAY THAT I WANT YOU TO DIE! SLOW DEATH, IMMENSE DECAY, SHOWERS THAT CLEANSE YOU OF YOUR LIFE!"**_

A truly relaxing experince...

After a minute of relaxation, he finally grabbed the remote to the juke box to turn down the sound of Tom Araya screaming about events that had happened in another world. With that done, he then reached for the t.v. remote to turn it back on, seeing the news was now covering a story about some sort of park being opened in the uptown area to commemerate fallen hunters from Beacon. Not really caring to switch the channel, he instead picked up the plate to start eating his first meal since he had left last night. He watched as somebody who _obviously wasn't_ Tom, this one looking to be a sort of Ryan-Seacrest-type, standing out in the morning sun with the completed park behind him. Even with the deplorable, empty shell of a human being standing before it, he did have to admit that the park itself looked decent from the camera's point of veiw.

"Lisa, i'm here today at the fully completed site of the city of Vale's newest and finest addition to it, the Huntsmen Memorial Park!" The man cheered with so much fake excitement coming from his mouth, he was suprised that he wasn't choking on it. "This beautiful recreational area had been under development for _months_ now, miticulously and carefully made in order to honor all of the Hunstmen and Huntresses who have fallen in their strenious line of work, protecting us from the ever present evil of _The Grimm._ "

He couldn't help but roll his eyes as he took a sip from his coffee at the man on the screen's over-ennunciation of the word Grimm. It wasn't like the dumbass ever had or ever would see one face to face, so he couldn't understand why the Ryan-Seacrest-Knock-Off acted as if he knew a single thing about the creatures of darkness, asides from that they were marketable for sales to make people buy more shit.

"And thankfully, our city has had the _gracious_ help from the Headmaster of Beacon himself! making sure that ever detail was just _perfect_ , The Headmaster both aided and funded in the project! And luckily, he's here today to join us on it's grand opening!"

He picked his plate back up from the coffee table before grabbing another fork full of egg to put in his mouth.

"Thank you for joining us today, Headmaster Ozpin!"

He nearly choked on his food as he coughed in suprise, spitting the wet egg out onto the floor as he quickly drank some coffee to clear his throat before turning back to the t.v. screen with an incredilous expression. Sure enough, on the screen was no other than the white-haired man himself, with a cane in hand and a fake smile on his face as he listened to the news caster prattle on about useless shit. After a solid minute of silence on his end, he finally managed to find his words again as he spoke up.

" _Your shitting me..._ " he muttered to himself in absolute suprise, before seeming to be able to find himself again and pick up his plate of eggs. He then turned around and whipped it at the wall, the plate shattering all over the floor as he did so.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME!"

"You've been here, this whole god-damned _time_!? How have you been hiding right under my fucking nose like this!? How has it taken me, this damn long, to notice this!?" He raved to himself as Ozpin answered the man's questions on screen. "A full _year!_ A full, god-damn, mother-fucking year of being here, and you just _now_ show your face!?"

Quickly stomping over to the clothing bin where he had dumped the bloody clothes from earlier, he quickly threw them around before finding his apron at the bottom and fishing out just what he needed, the paper from the night before that he had taken from the White Fang house. He looked at the Blond idiot on it, growling to himself as he grabbed one of his spare masks with his other hand before marching to his closet.

"Sorry, _Jaune Arc_ , but you've gotta find another way to get into Beacon illegally." He growled to himself as he ripped off his towel and began to start getting dressed.

He needed to go out and make a _visit._

* * *

He had to wait a lot longer to get into this place then he had originally wanted to, mainly because of the cops who were still looking for him from his previous adventure from the night before. So, he had located the collection of Warehouses that Joey had told him about, but it was still 12 o'clock in the afternoon. So, despite how much he wanted to go in the place right now and do whatever he needed to do, he needed to play it smart and wait for night fall. Finding a four story hotel about two blocks away, he made sure to get a room on the top floor, not minding having to pay the extra hundred lien for the so called 'suite'. One of the great positives about his job was being able to loot the corpses of the people he had dealt with. And once he had made the transition from street thugs to the assholes who had been directing them, he was able to afford a couple of nice things in his life.

Plus he just took a lot of the cool shit he would find at these places, but that was besides the point.

He had sat in a chair by the window with a pair of binoculars in one hand, and a bottle of scotch in the other, watching the specific warehouse closely to see what all he could gather from it while he waited. He took a swig of the bottle and let out a sigh, taking a moment to sit back and rub his eyes.

Sure, he was under age by a little under a year, but with his position in life he could just liberate the people he killed for anything he really needed. Being how he got his money, his belongings for his home, and his alcohol, it was a suprisingly stress free job to have. Then again, his job was mercilessly killing criminals who were guilty of murder, rape, abuse, child and drug trafficking, etc, etc. So not exactly completetly devoid of stress.

And it wasn't like he was actually working _under_ or _with_ anybody, either. Went out and did practically whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, even if he knew he had to be _extremely_ careful about it. And so far, it had been a semi-healthy way to help deal with his problems and let out his steam every now and again.

Granted, if you thought killing criminals _healthy_.

Shaking his head, he went to take another swig of the scotch, deciding that he'd rather _not_ dive into the morality of his line of work like he had done so earlier on. So long as he could subdue the urges inside, and keep _him_ from taking over, it was fine. That bastard was going to _stay_ there, where he wanted him.

But that was hours ago. Now, as night had taken over the city and plunged it into darkness, there he stood in the alleyway across the street from the warehouse he had been watching for the last half of the day. He stood in his outfit, looking down to his gloved hands to see the mask staring back at him. It's maniac smile grinned up at him, almost seeming as though it couldn't wait to get the job started. And hell, with what this would help for him to accomplish?

He couldn't wait either.

So, he put the mask on and tightened it around his face, giving it a little tug as he patted down the iron plates that were lined with the latex of the mask, making sure if fit snuggly. Just as it had every time before, it fit comfortably on him, letting his hair fall down to the sides of his face as he began to briskly trek across the streets, no cars anywhere in sight. In the dark he crept along, making his way to the fence with barbed wire atop it before stopping in front of it and crouching down. Fitting his fingers inside fo the gaps, he pulled hard before the gate began to come apart before him, the noise thankfully not being too loud to draw attention, until it formed a big enough hole he could duck through.

After making his way to the side of the building, he slowly crept along the sides of the building until he got to the last corner before he saw the doorway he needed to enter through, being able to hear music playing from inside. He peeked around, seeing the man who was guarding the door sit on a fold out chair as he smoked a cigarette and lazily scan the nearby area from his seat. It looked like as though they weren't expecting anyone tonight, so in turn the man had become complacent. He stood their and waited for the right time to strike.

Luckily, he didn't have to wait long, as after about two minutes fo him being there he stood up to round the dumpster and take a piss. With his back turned, he took the opportunity to quietly make his way up behind the man. And once he had finished and began to zip up his pants, that was when he went and grabbed the man's face over his mouth with one hand and bringing him in before he took his other to swing his hammer into the man's kneecap, breaking it and making sure to muffle the following scream. He practically dragged the goon over to the door to get inside and shoved his face into the key pad by it. The man, after taking a look at it while panting in pain, nodded his head in understanding before reaching up to the keypad and hitting in a four digit code, before the door clicked to reveal that the lock was undone. With that done, he pulled the man up and looked into his eyes, wanting to get a good look at his face in case he looked like he was going to try anything if he left him here. That was before he saw the man's hand try to reach down for the gun on his hip in his peripheral vision.

So he speared him the mercy, and instead brought the man's head back before slamming it into the wall. He pulled it back, and did it again and again, in a violent and rather rapid demeanor until his head busted open and painted the walls with red on the third slam, whatever noise it made hopefully being drowned out by the msuic from the inside. He dropped the body on the ground and looked at it for a second, before whipping his head to the door and pulling it open before it could re-lock itself.

Stepping in, he saw that the warehouse was rather dimly lit as he quickly move behind a storage rack stuffed to the brim with boxes. Peeking through a gap inbetween them, he looked through to see a total of three men sitting in the middle of the warehouse at a poker table, some shitty generic rap music being blared through a speaker next to it as the three smoked and dicked around on their phones. He watched for a moment before looking to the boxes next to him before spotting on that had been opened, revealing a stack of guns that had been hap-hazardly placed inside. Looking from the pile of guns, and back to the three men at the table, he got an idea as he picked one up, something similar to a glock before stepping to the other side of the rack and chucking it at the other side of the warehouse, making denting the metal and causing the three to stand up and look towards the direction of the sound with their guns in tow.

Taking that opportunity, he used his free hand to grab his cleaver and barreled towards the three goons as they continued to look in the direction of the noise. It wasn't until he was right behind them when the closest one must have heard him, turning around to face him and nearly shit himself in terror, trying to raise his gun up and shoot him. But he didn't give him a chance, slamming his cleaver into the man's face and cutting almost all the way through. But with the sound of their friend being slashed in the face, the other two turned to see him yank out his blade and fully sever the mans head as he charged towards them. He threw his hammer at the one who had raised his gun, striking him in the chest and causing him to fall before he could shoot as he ran up and grabbed the second one's hand with the gun in it. he raised it to the man's face, cause him to cease from firing so he wouldn't shoot himself. And while he did that, he slashed his blade into the man's stomach, partially disembowling him as he doubled over and yelled in pain. He quickly stopped that, however, by swinging the cleaver into the back of the man's head, this time completetly severing it in one swing before kicking the body over and stepping over it as he approached the last one.

The last goon tried to desperatetly reach for his gun, and managed to grab it's handle before He dropped a knee onto the arm and grabbed his wrist, before yanking the arm upwards against his knee and snapping the bone in two. And as this one tried to yell out as well, he used his other hand to savagely punch him in his throat, hard enough to snap his windpipe and cause him to start choking. Reaching over the man to retrieve his hammer, he then stood up and looked down for the choking man as he grasped desperatetly at his throat. He then stomped down on the man's head, before lifting his foot up and doing so again, killing him on the second strike.

He stood there, both looking at the bodies and trying to listen to see if anyone was coming. After a moment or two, he figured that nothing was coming for him. Instead, he turned back to the table, next to the speaker that continued to play really bad pop-rap. He saw an open scroll with some sort of music program on it. Picking it up, he debated turning the abomination of and sparing the world from this noise before realising that whoever else was here would probably be able to hear the music as well, and wonder why it was so suddenly turned off. So instead, he grinned to himself as he opened up the search option and began to look for something that he could play around with.

As Finnick sat at his table and worked away at his computer, he absent mindedly reached into one of the multiple drawers at his work station for a new folder to start putting into the system. When his hand came up empty, he at first looked towards the area in confusion before scowling as he remembered the reason why there was nothing there.

"Fucking Tason Boorhes from Saturday the 14th rip off." He grunted to himself once he remembered that his latest batch of transfers was absent due to the place they were being stored at for the night before was ransacked by the masked freak that had been running around town. Not only was his work being affected, he also wasn't able to figure out who's papers had been found, and just how many people were going to get affected by this. But, seeing as how none of his clients who had submitted requests had been contacted by the authorities to his knowledge, he would worry about that later. He supposed for now that he could finish up these last three documents and send them in. He popped his neck before typing away at his computer once more, finalising some details before he would send them in.

"Cinder...Fall...Mercury...Black... And Emerald... Sunstrai."

Finishing up, he scrolled through the fake transfer documents from Mistral to Beacon Academy. As he looked over the documents, he didn't particularly care about _why_ they were doing what they did, so long as it didn't affect him. What he did care about, however, was the pictures of the two women on the profiles and just how meticulously _hot_ they were, especially that Cinder woman. What an absolute babe. Maybe he could try and make up some sort of excuse to get her to come to the warehouse? Say that he needed to deleiver them in person or something, even though that was a blatant lie. Yeah, and then, once she was here, he could tell here about all the effort he went through and dangerous work he put in in order to get these for her. Leaning back in his chair, he smiled to himself as he envisioned it in his head.

" _Oh Cindy, it's so dangerous with everything that I do to get these done. All the loopholes I have to jump through, breaking into databases and wiping them clean before re-writing them, then getting out and covering my tracks? My life, is a constant game of danger."_ He would whisper to her in his arms, wrapped tightly in his trench coat. She would then look up to him longingly, tilting his fedora for him as she giggled in joy.

" _Oh Finnick-Sama, I don't know what I would have ever done without you!"_ She would sway in his arms as she puts a hand atop her breast. " _However could I repay you so?_ "

" _M'lady..._ " He would whisper once more as he tips his fedora downwards, using his other hand to move his katana collection of his bed before setting her down gently onto it. " _If you would simply... Allow me to take you on a date... With a Nice guy like me..."_

Finnick chuckled to himself, turning back around to his computer and hitting the _SEND_ button on the screen to ship out the passes to get produced. Maybe one day, he would use this to get a date with this Cinder woman. Until then, her pictures were getting put into the Spank Bank.

But opening up his sent documents to look at the picture once more, he was interrupted at the door by the loud sound of buzzing at his vault door. Being reminded of the rest of the world around him, Finnick sighed as he wheeled his office chair over to the intercom and hit the SPEAK button, being able to hear that the constant blaring of shitty rap by the three retards downstairs had changed to even shittier metal music.

"What do you want?" He groaned out, annoyed at having been interrupted from his fantasies. For a second, there was no sort of sound from the other side before a response was made.

" _Finnick, it's me, Amelia._ " A manly female voice responded. Finncik could have been more upset, he supposed, even if Amelia was kind of a butch. Plus there was the time she threatened to break both his arms after a particular exchange of dicks. Cause apparently it's rude to, very politetly and considerably send a dick pick to a woman while asking for nudes.

Wasn't that what they do?

"What is it?" He responded as he heard that shitty music go on in the background. Even if it was a bit of a change up from their so-called-rappers like Lil' Dump Kukashi 78, this was even worse. It didn't matter how many times he'd politetly tell them that M-Pop was the superior genre, they still kept playing that same shit over and over again. Plus they were especially rude to him after that, the rude assholes. "Can't you tell i'm busy?"

" _I have those missing files you were complaining about earlier. The ones that were at that house that got busted?"_ The woman told him from the speaker. He could barerly make out the words from the music droning in with it as well, but he understood. " _Apparently they had been delivered yesterday and Jones just never bother to tell us._ "

"Okay sweet, so looks like that dumb ass masked guy doesn't need an ass kicking today." He commented himself before laughing to himself at the thought of that killer cowering before him. it'd be what he deserved, for trying to interrupt his work. "Alright, i'll open the door. And tell those assholes to turn that shit down, it's awful!"

Without another word, he clicked a button next to the speaker that emitted a buzzing noise before the locks around the vault door gave away to let it slowly start opening. He didn't bother to face it though, instead opting to turn back to his work and try to download that picture of his dearest Cinder. But as the door opened up all the way, no one bothered to step in as the music seemed to start blaring _louder_.

 **In blood, his victims, will crawl. Body parts, all over, the halls. Body parts, all over, his house."**

"What the hell, why is it so loud? Do those idiots _want_ us to get found ou-" Finnick started to yell as he wheeled around in his chair to regard Amelia. He stopped, however, when he saw that she looked to be in some sort of pain as she eyed him fearfully.

Right before a man from behind her stabbed her through the throat with her own knife, poking through the front and spraying blood all over him.

" **They feed, the need, of his cannibal mind. Bloody murders, he left, behind."**

Finnick began to scream shrilly , backing away in his chair and into his desk as the man stepped over her dying body, covered in blood with a knife in his hand, his masked face smiling at him as a set of white teeth grinned underneath it, the masked killer now in _his_ home, standing right in front of him.

" _ **Why hello there, Finnick. It's so nice to meet you.**_ " He growled out menacingly. " _ **What's this I hear about you kicking my ass?**_ "

" **Jeffrey Dahmer, Master Cannibal. Jeffrey Dahmer, Master of the Gruesome**

Nearly pissing himself in fear, Finnick reached behind him for under his desk in order to retrieve the revolver he had kept under there. Pulling it out, he aimed it towards the masked killer. It wasn't any use though, seeing as how he grabbed Finnick's gun hand and slammed it down on the table, before using his other fist to slam down on the barrel of the gun. Finnick pulled it back up, but was dismayed when he saw the barrel was now bent at an irregular angle. Thinking about if he could still fire it or not, the music suddenly stopped playing as he looked back to the man before him, Jones's scroll in one hand, a knife still in the other. Dropping the scroll and stepping on it, the man grabbed Finnick by the top of his balding hair and brought his face inches away from his.

" _ **Now Finnick, I think you and I need to have a little bit of a talk...**_ " the man slurred out as he forcefully wheeled him towards his computer before slamming his face into the table, causing his nose to break as he let go. Finnick grabbed his nose and starting crying in pain as the masked man just stood there. He watched him thrash around for a second, before grabbing him by the hair once more and wheeling him back over. " _ **I hear, that you are just the most**_ **talented _with computers, and I was wondering if I could get a little bit of your help."_**

"W-What do you want with me?" Finnick sobbed as blood began to come out of his broken nose. The man seemed to reach for something behind him and causing him to flinch before he slammed a piece of paper down on the table top. Grabbing his head and shoving it into the paper, the man pointing at the picture of one of the applicants.

 _ **"You see Finnick, i want one of these for myself, with my pretty little face on it. Do you think that you could do that for me?"**_

Finnick looked down at the paper below him, swallowing slowly before turning back to face the scary, _terrifying_ man who was still breathing heavily, inches from his face.

"So... I-I've got both good news and bad news..." He began shakily as the man tilted his head to the side, his neck popping loudly as he did so and making him jump in his seat.

" _ **Well luckily for you, i've been watching a lot of news today, so i'd say that I could stand to hear it. So, whats the bad news, friend?"**_

"The bad n-news is... That I can't make any new transfer f-forms. Unfortunatetly, with the way the systems are set up, they can only accept a certain amount per year, and those ones have to be put in m-months in advance before they get finalis-"

Before Finnick could even finish his sentence, The Masked Man reared his hand back before punching straight _through_ his desk and into the wall behind it, before slowly pulling his hand back while he used his other to grab him by his collar as he laid his forehead against his, his smile now replaced with a nasty snarl as Finnick could see the man's eyes, his _real_ eyes, drill holes through the back of his head with the killing intent he could practically taste eminating from him.

" _ **I dont think you understand just how much i need one of these, buddy. You see, i need to get into Beacon, and i cant exactly get in without some sort of identification, can I? Just waltz on in, to a school full of trained huntsmen that are teaching these wee little tykes to become murdering machines? "**_ The man snarled spit into his face with the question. _**"Hell, even I wouldn't do that. You and i both know there's a good reason your getting holed up in a place like this to make these transcripts.**_ _**So, how about i make an offer, that you'd be an idiot to refuse."**_

Before Finnick could even finish processing the man's words, he threw Finnick behind him and against the wall, hitting his head and becoming slightly dazed from it. As he tried to right himself, however, he heard the whirring noise of some sort of motor starting up in the small room. Looking up, he was met with a chainsaw blade an inch away from his face, spinning wildly and snarling as the Masked Man glared down at him with a tilted back head.

" _ **Put my face on one of those transcripts before I skull-fuck your soul with this blade."**_

"WAIT! WAIT WAIT WAIT!" Finnick began to scream and cry as he tried to press into the wall he had been thrown into. "I CANT MAKE ANY NEW ONES, BUT I CAN ALTER THE ONE YOU BROUGHT!"

Throwing his arms up in front of him to try and protect himself, he scrunched eyes shut until he heard the sound of the engine dying. Daring to peek, he saw the man lower the chainsaw while staring incrediously at him.

" _ **And you didn't think to open with that.**_ " he commented to himself as he put the chainsaw on his back. After doing that, he grabbed Finnick by the back of his shirt and led him back over to the chair before pushing him down into it. As Finnick got to work, the man loomed over him and watched him closely as he started to close out of the other documents in order to get to the main program he used. He saw him linger on a picture of a woman with black hair and amber eyes before he clicked off that as well.

" _ **So humor me...**_ " He grumbled out as he reached behind his back and pulled out his cleaver. Even as Finnick eyed him from his peripherals with worry, he just pulled out a grind stone to sharpen the blade as he spoke. " _ **How does this whole process work.**_ "

"Y-You want, like, the whole gist of it, o-or..." He turned to the horrifying man slightly to regard him. The man looked at him for a second before nodding grimly. "O-Okay, so you know how whenever server's send out information to one another, they send out information in what's called _packets_ , right? Well, what I do is I intercept those specific packets while their being exchanged without them knowing in what's called a _Man in the Middle_ method. The packets I normally obtain are ones to do with sorts of passports, licenses, and manuscripts. Then, once I alter them to how my clients want them, I send them back into the stream for them to be verified as legit by the original recipient. I just put up a packet-filtering firewall that poses as a security firewall to intercept those verified documents, send them to my clients so they can have their own copy, then put it back in like nothing happened. And like I said, we have a certain limit that the server is set to accept, because if five or ten licenses for, let's say piloting a bull head get altered, that's not that big of a deal. Chances of those few getting noticed are abysmal compared to like fifty to a hundred."

" _ **And they've never thought to exstensivly check the path these packets were going through for anything like these firewalls that weren't supposed to be there?**_ " The masked man asked with a hint of suprise in his voice. And while he was suprised that the information didn't fly over the killer's head like ti did most people, or those who just didn't care, Finnick actually let out a snort of laughter as he nodded to the man, his terror having been temporarily forgotten as he had been put back into his comfort zone of work. The place that he was the most useful in, the place that, people needed _him_ for.

"Yeah, it honestly still baffles me that they don't ever have anyone run any sort of IDS checks on their systems." Finnick admitted as he located the blond kid's un-edited file before opening it. "I mean granted, it's not like we're trying to hack into the CCT connection lines, That place has some decent security. That'd require like manually uploading a virus or something into one of the tower's computer systems itself. But, I guess when you've got Grimm constantly attacking the physically mailed transports of these between kingdoms, you start to just be happy that you got them at all, let alone a little 'mixed up with other orders'. And since we only do shipments that are from one kingdom from another, i think the only time someone actually noticed something was because one of the applicants openly had a large criminal record on his name, even if the license didn't list it. Then again, that person was the dumb ass I work for, freakin' Torchwick."

At that name popping up again, The Man's head quickly turned to Finnick, causing him to eye the masked man nerviously. Eventually, he seemed to start nodding to himself as he reached up and scratched his chin in thought.

"Hey, uhm, i hate to interrupt, but..." Finnick broke the silence as he turned to the man while gesturing to the computer screen. "I need to know what you want put on this transcript and uhh... I'm going to need a picture of your face on here. And I mean your _real_ face, too."

As much as Finnick hated having to say it out loud, they both knew that he was going to have to do that eventually if he wanted a legitimate Beacon I.D. in order to get in. For a minute, Finnick was worried that the now somewhat docile man would get angry again, but instead looked over to the nearby camera station set up for the few times he had a client come directly to his workplace to get this done. Rare, but not exactly unheard of. As he walked over, he turned to Finnick and pointed at the table next to him.

" _ **Throw me that coat.**_ " he commanded. Turning around, he saw that the man was pointing at his leather pea coat. Even if he liked the jacket, Finnick would rather have a ruined coat from blood than a ruined face from a chainsaw. So he wheeled over in his chair before grabbing said coat and tossing it to the man. And as the man put on the large black coat, he turned to face the camera pointed at him before reaching behind his head. But before he did anything else, he spoke loudly so he could hear him.

" _ **Let me make this clear, you take the picture and don't touch another ket until I get over there.**_ "

Finnick nodded, looking at the masked man silently until he seemed satisfied and turned back to the camera. With that, he finished un-doing the strings on the back of the head and pulled off the mask.

Finnick was suprised when he saw that the man didn't have some sort of gross deformity to him. Matter of fact, this guy looked pretty... Normal, actually. With long, brown hair that reached down to his shoulders now that it wasn't kept up in the mask, and with a small beard, the guy looked to be in his early 20's. Hell, these two could've passed one another on the street, and Finnick would have never been able to guess that this guy was a masked serial killer.

That was, until, he turned to the camera option on the computer and hesitated before taking the picture.

He looked at it to obviously make sure that nothing to particular was sticking out, like a giant cut or bloodstain on him, but luckily the jacket covered any of that up. No, blood wasn't the problem here. The problem wasn't coming from the man himself, who was staring directly into the camera with a frown.

He was staring face to face with cold, dead eyes. Those same eyes that had bored into his soul earlier, seemingly amplified by the lack of any cloth to cover them.

" _ **What's taking so long, Finnick.**_ " He both heard and saw the man question in the picture frame, his expression growing slightly annoyed. Shaking himself back to reality, he turned to address the man over his desk.

"Uhmmm... You may wanna exchange your expression there, chief." Finnick admitted shyly as he saw the man his head to look at him, that look sending another chill down his spine. "No offense, b-but you have a look like your about to go burn a church full of nuns to the ground."

He expected The Un-masked man to get upset at that insult, but he instead just laughed at it as he shook his head. It was short, and sound like gravestones being grinded against one another. With that, he turned back to the camera, putting on the smallest of smiles. And as he waited for the killing gaze to come back, it instead was replaced with just regular, olive green eyes. Finnick had to look back over the desk to make sure that it was the same person, before making sure that it was and taking the picture before rolling away from the computer like he was told. The camera snapped, and after a miniature flash, the picture was taken and loaded onto the computer screen. The Man walked over, still in the borrowed coat and without his mask, though he carried it in one hand as he inspected the picture.

" _ **Not bad, I suppose.**_ " He commented before reaching over to the mouse and clicking on the files before opening downloads. While Finnick would have normally lost his shit at someone else touching his computer, he had to physically restrain himself to keep himself from getting killed. " _ **And you didn't save it either... Though I do see you saved a picture of that black haired woman. Not bad.**_ "

"Listen, I know you said that you don't want me to save any pictures of your face, and I totally get that, but you gotta understand something." Finnick began to explain as the man looked back to him, thankful that his eyes were nuetral instead of having that murderous look he had earlier. "There's a pretty good chance that people are gonna check your Manuscript pretty often throughout the process, and I have actual evidence of that because I'm able to track from here whenever anybody opens these documents. So while you may have a physical copy and a card, if someone were to double check it and see that no digital copy exists... You see what i'm getting at here?"

The man didn't answer at first, reaching for his chin again in thought as he looked at the computer screen mindfully. Finnick waited for the man to respond, and after a moment of that he nodded to the computer and gestured to it.

" _ **It looks properly filled out, but there's no name.**_ " He commented. Finnick looked to the computer and saw what he was talking about.

"Yeah, Normally my clients have the option of using their real name or making a fake one. They always choose, not me. And since I don't know your real name..." Finnick slowly shrugged his shoulders, but the action went unnoticed as the man stared at the computer, a hard gaze transfixes on it as he seeemd to give the situation some thought.

" ** _My real name doesn't matter anymore._** " He spoke once more, a suprising touch of somber in his tone. " _ **The people who knew my by that name are long gone... And I haven't used it in years.**_ "

"Well, o-okay then." Finnick said as he wheeled up to the computer and clicked on the name box. "If you don't wanna use your... _old_ name, what do you want for your new one?"

And once again, the man went back into a Brooding silence as he seemed to contemplate a name. And he didn't blame him, some of his clients didn't care, others wanted something simple like John Doe, or others wanted something that they found really cool and interesting to them. He had heard a whole lot before, maybe if he were to offer the guy suggestions? Hell, it sounds ridiculous, but if he were to suggest something the guy would like, it may help increase his chances of not getting brutally mur-

"Schuldiner."

Startled from his thougts, Finnick turned to the man who had just spoken, but in a different voice then the one he had been using. He stared at him in silence for a second, the man turning to look at him before speaking in a voice that was had turned down the smoking and drinking effect by 11.

"Chuck Schuldiner." he continued. "That's the name I want."

Finnick sat in silence for a second, thinking about all of the mental ton-fuckery that had been happening for the past... Not even ten minutes. Thinking about how many times he'd been ready to piss himself, how many times he had been hit and threatened, how quickly this guy had changed from threatening to skull fuck him with a chain saw to having a somewhat normal conversation with him out of his murdering costume... Finnick let out a long sigh as he wheeled back to the computer, using one hand to gently massage his broken nose.

"I feel like your refrencing someone, and I have no idea who that is."

"I'd be more suprised if you did." The man who was now named Chuck Shuldiner chuckled slightly as he set down his mask before taking off the coat to reveal his bloodied costume underneath. And as Chuck went and put the coat back where Finnick had grabbed it from, the full weight of the fact that he was sitting here and making a falsified manuscript for a masked killer who was wanting to infiltrate Beacon Academy for reasons that he didn't know, who had went from threatening to kill him with the voice of a demon who's teeth were made of gravel to looking and sounding like a regular guy on the streets.

Seriously, what the fuck was his night tonight.

"Okay, Chuck...Schul...Diner..." Finnick finished all the details and moved slightly so Chuck could see it. Looking over it, he apparently saw nothing wrong with the document as he read it and nodded. Letting him move back in, Finnick clicked the SUBMIT button to send it in, before clicking the PRINT option as well to give Chuck a physical copy. "Sorry Mr. Jaune Arc, but between you and the guy behind me, i'd much rather screw you over then him."

He had meant to whisper it to himself, but Finnick supposed that CHuck had heard it, if the chuckle behind him meant anything at all as he walked over to the whirring printer. So, Chuck had gotten what he came here for. Finnick had done his job like he was told. Chuck no longer needed Finnick.

So what did that mean for him?

"S-Soo..." Finnick swallowed as Chuck picked out the multiple documents, folding the printed paper into his back pocket before looking at the small plastic I.D. card that had been lamenated before him. "I figure that I should go ahead and ask t-this... But what are you gonna do with me?"

Chuck just looked at him in silence for a second, not bothering to break eye contact with Finnick. And while it was still unnerving, he didn't have that murderous intent in his eyes from earlier, so that was hopefully some good news if there ever was any. Chuck finally broke the eye contact as he walked back over to Finnick, causing the computer nerd to nervously grip the handles on his computer chair as the man passed by him and reached for his mask lying on the table.

"If i'm going to be honest with you Finnick, when I first walked in here I had every intention to kill you." Chuck said as he turned away from Finnick, putting his mask back onto his face as he spoke, turning back around, Finnick wasn't so pleased to see that with the mask back on, some of that murderous intent had returned to Chuck's gaze. " _ **But, it seems that luckily for you, you seem to show that you have some use for me.**_ "

"W-What do you mean?" Finnick questioned with a worried expression. While okay, he wasn't going to die, he didn't know how good he felt about _this_ new development. Chuck didn't move, staring at the ground for a second in thought before his head twitched back up to look him in the eye.

Even in his panicked state, Finnick thought to himself that, while he could see bits and pieces of one in the other, it felt like that when Chuck put that mask one, he became an entierly different person then without. A strange thought to have during a time where his life was being decided by a masked maniac named Chuck, but he couldn't seem to help it.

" ** _Well one, it seems that i need you alive in order to make sure that my documents stay the way I need them too._** " Chuck began as the leaned against the table next to him. " _ **You've also managed to prove yourself useful to me, what with all this information you've provided to me. It seems as though you know a lot, correct?**_ "

"Uh-huh." Finnick nodded in acknowledgment. He didn't trust himself to speak at the moment.

" _ **And from what I had been told by the man who gave me this location, you seem to be a pretty knowledgable person of the going on's in Vale, correct?**_ "

"Uh-Huh." Finnick nodded once more.

" ** _Then i think we might have a little bit of an exchange set up for us then, see as how we both have something the other wants; You have information that could greatly aid my with my job and can make sure that my identity doesn't leak, and I will make sure you don't accidently 'die'. Plus, if you put in good effort, I could give you about 30% of the profit I make on these runs. So essentially, you get to work for me now. How does that sound, Finnick?_** " Chuck proposed as he reached out his hand with a smile. Even if he had already seen the other side of the man, that didn't make this one any less terrifying for him. So, he slowly reached out his hand and shook it. Not like he had much of a choice, really.

"H-How am I supposed to reach you?" He questioned. Chuck looked at him for a second before grabbing Finnick's scroll and looking up his number in the setting tab. Taking out apiece of paper from Finnick's desk and writing it down, he tossed the scroll back to him, which he suprisingly caught.

 ** _"You'll hear from me._** " Chuck growled out as he turned to walk away. As he stepped over the dead body of Ameila, he waved over his back befor ehe turned the corner. " ** _Pleasure doing business with you, Finnick."_**

And with that, the man named Chuck Schuldiner walked away and out of veiw, leaving Finnick sitting there in disbelief as he looked at the dead body of the woman before him, realising that he was going to have to clean that up. With a sigh, he stood up and looked down t the hand that had shook Chuck's.

Why did he feel like he had just shook hands with the devil?

* * *

 **Songs in order:**

 **For Victory by Bolt Thrower**

 **Angel of Death By Slayer (I hope most of you know that)**

 **Jeffrey Dahmer by Soulfly (And No, he's not actually Jeffrey Dahmer.)**

 **I don't know how well I can actually blend music into a word-exclusive medium, but i'm going to give this a week before I decide whether or not this is a good addition or something that's confusing and executed poorly. If the later ends up to be the case, i shall remove those bits then. Until then, I hope you look forward to chapter 3.**


End file.
